


You do not have to be good

by justdk



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: M/M, Poetry, college adam, this is a lot of feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-20
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2019-08-04 15:25:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16349261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justdk/pseuds/justdk
Summary: Adam shares some much needed truth with Ronan





	You do not have to be good

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this ficlet and the lines quoted are from Mary Oliver’s poem [Wild Geese](http://www.phys.unm.edu/~tw/fas/yits/archive/oliver_wildgeese.html)

“Ronan.”

Adam’s voice wakes him, pulling him out of his fitful dreams.

“Yeah? What?” Ronan mumbles. His arm reaches out but doesn’t find Adam, only a nest of pillows. He blinks his eyes open, squinting at the unexpected white light emanating from his phone. He doesn’t remember it ringing or answering the call.

“Are you there?”

Knowing that Adam isn’t beside him, that he’s tucked away in his dorm, miles and miles from him, hits like a load of bricks. Ronan tugs a pillow to his chest and adjusts his body on the couch.

“Yeah, I’m here.”

It’s not like Adam to call this late. It’s not like Ronan to pass out on the couch. It’s been a bad week, bad in a way that Ronan can’t quantify. Objectively nothing has changed except that he feels haunted. The early onset of darkness, the growing chill in the air, they trigger some shallowly buried memories. Ronan doesn’t sleep well with Adam gone so he wears himself out with farm work in order to get to sleep. He can’t even remember what he did today; it feels like a blurry slog and the weather isn’t helping, the sky overcast and dreary.

“I want to read you something,” Adam says. “My professor shared it in class and I think you need to hear it.”

Ronan throws his forearm over his eyes and tries to breathe around the tight feeling in his chest. He’s not going to cry. He should be happy, just to hear Adam, just to know that Adam is thinking of him.

“Go ahead.” He gets the words out even though he feels choked. He swallows thickly, his throat raw.

“It’s a poem,” Adam explains, “called _Wild Geese_.”

Ronan curls up and hugs the pillow tighter. He clings to Adam’s voice like a lifeline.

“You do not have to be good.” The words are spoken low, enriched by Adam’s soft accent. “You do not have to walk on your knees / for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. / You only have to let the soft animal of your body / love what it loves.”

Ronan begins to cry, silent, soul-wrenching tears streaking down his cheeks and soaking into the pillow.

Adam continues to read, the cadence of his voice wrapping around Ronan like a blessing. The last part, like the first, feels like it was written especially for Ronan: “Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, / the world offers itself to your imagination, / calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting - / over and over announcing your place / in the family of things.”

Ronan can picture the V of migrating geese flying overhead, can hear their ringing calls. Poignant longing stirs in him, wells up and runs clear through him like the stream through Cabeswater’s enchanted woods. His heart thuds in his chest until he’s aching and trembling.

There’s a heavy pause when Adam reads the last line. Ronan listens to him breathing, wants him so badly that he has to squash the urge to grab his jacket and his keys and drive straight to Adam.

“Well?” Adam asks. “Did you like it?”

Ronan exhales shakily. “Read it again,” he says.

There’s a smile in Adam’s voice as he begins again. “You do not have to be good…”

—–

That night Ronan sleeps better than he has in months, his dreams vivid and sparkling and wonderful. It feels like the burden he’s been carrying for years has been set down and he’s free. Free to love what he loves and dream the world.

**Author's Note:**

> the first time I heard this poem I was a rising high school senior attending a gifted summer program. that summer - and this poem - changed my life. many of the changes took years to be fully realized but for the first time my eyes were opened to another truth and whenever I feel lost I come back to this poem and find my way again
> 
> you can find me on tumblr @dkafterdark


End file.
